Festival of Brewers Focus – Meanwood Brewery

Nestled between Headingley and Chapel Allerton, Meanwood was for a while just the space in-between its livelier, trendier neighbours. Unless you lived there, you were mainly just passing through on the route to have fun elsewhere. However, over the last ten years there has been a slow trickle of openings and expansions that have resulted in Meanwood being a destination in itself. There’s certainly a range of good beer bars and pubs, and latterly this is looking even healthier due to the creation of the Meanwood Brewery and their subsequent plans.

Meanwood Brewery is the result of brotherly love, with Graeme and his brother Baz deciding to take their homebrewing hobby to the next level. With a 1hl kit being upgraded soon to a 3hl beast, the brothers are certainly moving apace – the ultimate aim is to open ‘Terminus’, a microbrewpub in the old tram terminus. With beers in Cask, Keg and rather slinky Bottles, their range stretches from ‘Pilgrim’, a NEIPA, to ‘Trickster’, a strong Saison, to ‘Exile’ a Blackberry Crumble Berliner Weisse, all of which will be on their Bar at Festival of Brewers, along with casks of ‘Totem’, a 6.2% American Brown Ale, ‘Arecibo Message’, a 5.7% American Pale Ale, and ‘Heroic’, a 5% English IPA.

If you can’t attend the Festival of Brewers for some unimaginable reason, you’ll find their bottles at the usual places – Alfred, Beer Ritz, Raynville Superstore, Growlers, Caspar’s Bottle Shop and George and Joseph, as well as at Alley Cats and Corner Cafe, in Pop up events at Tandem and the occasional keg in Wapentake. Baz is excited about ‘getting to work alongside so many great breweries from the area and trying some of their beers with the public’ and if you haven’t already snapped up a ticket, his advice is simple. ‘Get one. You definitely don’t want to miss out on this one’.

About the Festival of Brewers

The first ever Festival of Brewers event takes place on 29th and 30thJune 2018, with New Craven Hall hosting, which can be found just one-mile South of Leeds City Train Station.

All too often, independent beer festivals choose to focus their attention on the same, larger, popular UK craft breweries. This makes it difficult for the hundreds of smaller breweries across the UK to share the spotlight. Festival of Brewers aims to address that by only showcasing the small and independent breweries.

You can find out all the information, including participating breweries and street food vendors, tickets and how to find the venue on the website www.festivalofbrewers.co.uk.